In DE-A1-40 35 519 of the Applicant, it has already been proposed to equip a large manipulator with a remote-controllable washing brush. The known large manipulator includes an articulated pole which is constructed of a plurality of extension arms which are mutually pivotable at their ends. The basic extension arm of which is mounted rotatably about a vertical axis on a bearing pedestal disposed on an underframe and the end extension arm includes a multiple joint which can be fitted with the brush head. The multiple joint can be actuated there in three rotary degrees of freedom and additionally exhibits a translatory degree of freedom created by a telescopic axle. The brush head contains two motor-driven brush rollers, which include, in the rotating state, a frustoconical contacting surface and face each other at their front ends of larger diameter and which enclose a variable angle between their rotational axes and are disposed on the carrier such that they can be mutually adjusted.
From this publication, it is also known to assemble the brush rollers and their supporting bodies from three roller sections, which can be axially separated from one another and are mounted on the brush shaft by means of mutually independent torque pickups. The roller sections enable an adjustable alignment of the brush roller, relative to a surface to be worked, and according to the difference in the torques measured between the outer roller sections during the cleaning operation. It has been shown in practice, however, that a large number of cleaning tasks, for example in the washing of aircraft, cannot be achieved using a double-roller brush head, primarily due to a lack of degrees of motional freedom. Apart from this, it has proven very difficult to produce a reliably operating torque pickup in the known brush rollers.
Based upon the above, the object of the invention is to develop a brush head for large manipulators of the type defined in the introduction, which, in the operating state, enables the torque to be reliably recorded for automatic guidance of the brush head on the surface to be cleaned.
In order to achieve this object, it is proposed according to the invention
that the brush shaft also be divided up into a number of shaft sections corresponding to the number of roller sections, PA1 that the mutually assigned, mutually concentric roller and shaft sections are interconnected by radial spacers, which are arranged spaced apart about the periphery, are very rigid in the axial and radial directions and are yielding in the peripheral direction, PA1 that the torque pickups include a weighing cell, which protrudes radially over the respective shaft section in the direction of the roller section, and a tensioning member, which extends essentially tangentially, counter to the direction of rotation, between the weighing cell and the inner side of the associated roller section, PA1 and that the brush rings, which are made up, respectively, of a shaft section and roller section, in creating the brush roller, are axially braced one against the other in the region of the shaft sections and are connected to the motor drive located on the carrier side.